Posted by on under boing boing, uc berkeley, positive psychology, study psychology, victory speech, emoti, lump in the throat, meaningful life, wrg, psychological study, dacher keltner, strength of character, barack obama, forthcoming book, jas, better life, heartburn, slat | 
UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner is a pioneer in the study of an emotion known as "elevation," characterized by a "a feeling of spreading, liquid warmth in the chest and a lump in the throat." (Not be confused with heartburn.) Triggering that emotion in the lab is challenging. His research group's latest approach though is to play their subjects Barack Obama's victory speech. (My IFTF colleague Jason Tester has dubbed the impact of Obama on people's brains "neurobama.") Slate has a great profile of "elevation" research, including the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis. I also look forward to reading Keltner's forthcoming book on the subject of "elevation," titled Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (which is not an Obama biography). From Slate: Elevation has always existed but has just moved out of the realm of philosophy and religion and been recognized as a distinct emotional state and a subject for psychological study. Psychology has long focused on what goes wrong, but in the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in "positive psychology"â??what makes us feel good and why. University of Virginia moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who coined the term elevation, writes, "Powerful moments of elevation sometimes seem to push a mental 'reset button,' wiping out feelings of cynicism and replacing them with feelings of hope, love, and optimism, and a sense of moral inspiration...." We come to elevation, Haidt writes, through observing othersâ??their strength of character, virtue, or "moral beauty." Elevation evokes in us "a desire to become a better person, or to lead a better life." "Obama in Your Heart" (Slate), Buy "Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life" (Amazon), Buy "The Happiness Hypothesis" (Amazon)...
Tagi: boing boing, uc berkeley, positive psychology, study psychology, victory speech, emoti, lump in the throat, meaningful life, wrg, psychological study, dacher keltner, strength of character, barack obama, forthcoming book, jas, better life, heartburn, slat
Posted by on under illuminati, dan brown, thriller |
I received this email message yesterday, regarding Dan Brown's new thriller, The Lost Symbol. It looks like the Illuminati have shut down freemasons.org, to prevent further secrets from being revealed....
TODAYs NEWS:
Kottke: Editing Dan Brown
Tagi: illuminati, dan brown, thriller
Posted by on under boing boing, resource scarcity, forthcoming novel, james howard kunstler, staggs, coming of spring, hebr, cheap energy, comex, birth death, nimbus, catastrophes, annoyances, modernity, community members, scents, twenty first century, family friends, witch |
Matt Staggs of Suvudu interviewed James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century) about his forthcoming novel, The Witch of Hebron, which is anther novel set in the same universe as his end-of-cheap-energy novel, World Made by Hand (which I liked and reviewed here). Staggs: Both World Made by Hand and The Witch of Hebron take place in the world of The Long Emergency, which you’ve written about in the non-fiction title of the same name. Could you very briefly explain what the Long Emergency is for our readers? Kunstler: The Long Emergency is the culminating crisis of modernity, growing out of the limits to growth, resource scarcity, and the collapse of the complex systems that keep us going — everything ranging from industrialized farming to oil-based transportation to electronic communication. It can also be described as the crisis of over-investments in complexity — resolving in a traumatic wave of sudden de-complexifying. Staggs: Reading your novels, I find myself in some ways envious of the sense of community enjoyed by the residents of Union Grove, yet I remain aware of – and wary of – the incredible loss of life that our world would experience following a collapse of our oil-based infrastructure. On the whole, would you imagine that we’d gain or lose more in such a world? Kunstler: It’s part of the tension of the story that we are constantly having to measure what’s been gained against what’s been lost. The losses are perhaps more obvious: comfort, certainty, and the whole prosthetic nimbus of technology that we are so used to. The gains are perhaps more subtle: making your own music, enjoying the sounds, scents, and sensations of nature much more directly, the blessed absence of cars and other motor-driven annoyances, unmediated relations with family, friends, and community members, a reconnection with the elemental ceremonies of birth, death, the harvest, the coming of spring, etc. Interview with James Howard Kunstler, author of The Witch of Hebron...
Tagi: boing boing, resource scarcity, forthcoming novel, james howard kunstler, staggs, coming of spring, hebr, cheap energy, comex, birth death, nimbus, catastrophes, annoyances, modernity, community members, scents, twenty first century, family friends, witch
